In case you missed the story, here’s the short version: Someone paid a Hillsboro-based company to put 300 plastic flamingos and a few “settle the flocking contract” signs in three school board members’ yards last week. These are tense days for Portland Public Schools leaders, with the teachers union considering the district's first ever strike. One board member didn’t take the “flocking” as a joke and threw the birds away, leaving the small business that delivered the ornaments out $600.

After our story ran online, some Portland teachers changed their Facebook profile photographs to a pro-teacher flamingo illustration. And nearly 130 of you commented on our Monday night story. Some sided with the school board member who threw the birds away. Others accused him of being unable to take a joke. What do you think? As we head into tonight’s board meeting, let us know in the comments.

the board member in question could have called Think Pink and demanded that they immediately remove the birds, or he could have tossed them behind his garage and told them to come pick them up... instead, he made a special trip to the dump to throw away someone else's property, because he can't take a mild poking. what a jerk.

It looks as though the School Board member was sending his own message, and that was he would not be intimidated, cajoled, or made fun of. … Being "flocked" is not different that having your house egged, a lawn job, or TP'd - it's vandalism, pure and simple.

I don't agree with the people who paid for the service. They should think about if a parent with whom they were having an argument with did the same thing. Yes, everyone knows where the school board members live, but home is home. IMO

Readers should remember that there are 2900 frustrated teachers out there. There are going to be different reactions to the stress.

Any anger should be directed towards whomever set up and paid for the service, not the innocent company that did what they were paid to do. An adult would know this. It looks like this school board member is both childish and reactive, not good traits for somebody in, well, just about any job.

If things do result in a strike, this fellow's gonna need to man up. Someone that loses it at the sight of some fake birds in his yard... what's he going to do when he's got a bunch of frumpy school marms start waving signs? Hope he doesn't have a heart condition, else he may not last long enough to get voted out.

It is your property, someone trespassed and deposited unwanted debris on your lawn. If you choose to call them to clean up their mess, fine. If you take it on yourself to clean up the mess on your lawn - that is fine too; it is your property. It is nice that you care to take care of your property and how the neighborhood looks. How you do it is up to you - it is your property. They already trespassed once - why encourage them to come out to trespass again on your property?

And people wonder why it is so hard to get people to run for the volunteer school board. This was a stupid practical joke that has no business in negotiations. All of the birds should have been taken to the landfill.

I think a bunch of you are making some very large assumptions as to who did this? Where does it say the union did this? This could have been a parent, regular citizen, classified member of PPS or a possibly a union member who didn't have the wishes of the group as a whole. I do think the intention was probably humor. Possibly they thought a little levity was needed in a very intense negotiation. Obviously that intent failed. I'm not sure the business owner deserved to have their property lost or destroyed, they probably didn't know what they were getting into. For all of you property rights guys on here. Technically, you are right, but jeez lighten up a bit. It's a joke. Poor taste maybe, but nobody got hurt. No one was publicly called out or embarrassed. It was a joke.